Lithograph with hand coloring, visible area 655 x 1150 mm, matted and framed (unexamined out of frame). Some overall browning, a few tiny spots, some white spots to upper right sky or margin.
 
A RARE EARLY VIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO, lithographed immediately following the Gold Rush, showing the view from the corner of Fremont and Harrison Streets on Rincon Hill, with a panoramic view of the city including Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Mount Tamalpais, Telegraph Hill, Angel Island, and Yerba Buena Island.  The foreground shows the gardens of William F. Babcock, who had arrived in San Francisco in 1852, and who gained control of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company in 1854.
 
Fessenden Nott Otis, a New York landscape artist and topographical draftsman, was also a ship's surgeon.  He served the United States Mail Steamship Company on their Panama to California route from 1853 to 1859, during which he executed the drawing from which this lithograph was taken.  VERY RARE: according to online records, only one example of this print has sold at auction in the last 40 years. Baird, Historic Lithographs of San Francisco, 33; Reps 274.